Search to find truth马航飞机失联，“黑匣子”成解谜关键。

ON March 8, a Boeing 777 from Malaysia to Beijingdisappeared. It has become perhaps the biggest mysteryin modern aviation (航空) history.The Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 lost contact shortlyafter taking off. It carried 239 people on board, including154 Chinese.Where did the plane go? More than 25 countries have joined the effort to look for it.On March 24, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razaksaid that the plane “ended in the southern Indian Ocean”. Everyone on the plane died.But the mystery is still not solved.Normally, a plane is believed to have crashed after debris (残骸) is found. But when Razak made theannouncement, no debris had been found. The conclusion was based on analysis of satellite data (卫星数据).To find out what happened to the flight, we must find one small object: the black box.It is a recording device kept in a plane. It records the flight data and conversations in the cockpit (驾驶舱).The black box has an underwater beacon (信标) which sends signals for 30 days after falling into water. The signals can be detected up to around 3 km away.While the search for the plane is going on, countries with black box detecting equipment, including the US, the UK and Australia, are joining forces.It’s a race against time. The battery is running low.But nobody is giving up. China has said it will work hard to find out the truth at all costs.Just as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said: “If this mystery is solvable, we will solve it.”Black box factsThe term “black box” was first used by the British Royal Air Force.A black box is not black, but orange. The word “black” here refers to the box’s inside, which is dark and filled with information.Crew of Xue Long, an ice breaker of China, are looking for the plane in Indian Ocean.XINHUAEarth faces huge danger全球变暖带来八大危机。

GLOBAL warming often makes headlines these days.Why is it so important?A group of scientists attended a UN meeting in Japanlate March, and listed the “eight reasons to worry aboutglobal warming”.Both coastal (临海的) and inland flooding are a majorthreat (威胁) to people’s lives. Meanwhile, in rural (农村的) areas, water shortages will make the poor even poorer.Farming is affected. Because of warming, drought (干旱) and heavy rain, more people will go hungry.Some fish and other animals could be in trouble. That’s not good for people who depend on them.There are also some relatively new risks. Extreme weather, like storms, can damage some of the things we need every day, like electricity, running water and emergency services. Heat waves, especially in cities, are a huge risk to the elderly and very young.Scientists made the list to warn people that Earth is at a turning point (转折点). If governments act now, some of the risks could be cut, but only if “strong actions” are taken, said a report by the scientists.Change font to save money美国中学生为政府支招：换个字体能省钱。

LOOK at the books around you. Have you ever thought of how much ink they used? Can you think of a way to save ink?Suvir Mirchandani, 14, had a clever idea: change the fonts (字体) that the English words use.Since the new term, the student from Pittsburgh, US, found that there were many printed handouts (散发的文字材料) at his school. He wanted to cut waste and save money.While many people focused on paper use, Suvir set his eyes on cutting down ink usage.He picked five of the most commonly used letters: e, t, a, o and r. First, he made a chart to show how often each letter was used in four different fonts: Garamond, Times New Roman, Century Gothic and Comic Sans. Then he measured (测量) how much ink was used for each letter using a software program.Next he enlarged the letters, printed them and cut them out on paper to weigh them to check his findings.Global warming is affecting everyone on the planet.XINHUASuvir found that by using Garamond with its thinner strokes (笔画), his school district could reduce its ink usage by 24 percent (百分之……).After he applied his project to the US government, he found it could help the government use 25 percent less ink and save $400 million (2.48 billion yuan)!So far the government has not said whether it will make the change. But Suvir wasn’t di sappointed.“It’s difficult to change someone’s behavior,” he told CNN. “I’d be happy to go as far as possible to make that change possible.”Trust friends when fallingONE day, our teacher said that he had an exercise for us to try. We were to stand, facing away from our classmates, and fall backward, relying (依赖) on another student to catch us. Most of us were uncomfortable with this. We couldn’t fall back for more than a few inches before stopping ourselves.Finally, Judy stood out. She is a thin, quiet, dark-haired girl who always wears big, white fisherman sweaters. Judy crossed her arms over her chest, closed her eyes, leaned back, and did not flinch (退缩). She looked like one of those Lipton tea commercials (广告) where the model jumps into the pool.υFor a moment, I was sure she was going to thump (重重砸到) on the floor. At the last moment, her partner grabbed her head and shoulders and pulled her up immediately.ϖ“Whoa!” several students yelled. Some clapped their hands. Our teacher finally smiled. “You see,” he said to the girl. “You closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see. You have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other person trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too –even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”我们常常被眼睛看到的困难吓倒，却忘记了心灵的力量。